Gear Minded
by garfieldodie
Summary: Series 8. Lister is freaked out when Kochanski goes on a date with her ex, Tim, and suspects that Tim might have some ulterior motive. R&R.
1. News

_**Author's Notes: **Takes place before Only the Good. I own nothing. Thank you for reading. Even more thanks for reviewing. Triple-thanks for favoritinginginging... Blabber, blabber, blab, blab, diddly-do, diddly-do, diddly-squat._

_Thank you._

* * *

The door to the G-Block Top Level Prison Cell whirred and clanked as it slid open. It had been a long day on another death-defying _Canary _mission, and Lister and Rimmer were exhausted and feeling more or less dead to the universe. They stumbled into their cell, flanked by a guard, who gave them some encouraging shoves into their quarters.

"Alright, you two," he said. "Here you are, safe and sound."

"Thanks, Jives," Lister mumbled, leaning against his bunk for support.

"Supper should be on in about an hour. Just take a load off," the guard continued, and with that, he left the cell, closing the door behind him and leaving their tower.

Rimmer collapsed into his chair and put his elbows down on the table. "Okay, let's recap so we can file the report," he mumbled into his hands.

Lister sighed and sat down on the bottom bunk as he began to remove his _Canary _garb. "Do we have to do that now?" he moaned.

"Why would we put that off?"

"Well for a start, we just finished fleeing in terror from that giant tentacle-armed hell beast that had all the charm of a garbage disposal. Then afterwards we rode in that cramped shuttle next to Baxter's smelly pits."

Rimmer contemplated for all of two seconds. "Good point. We'll do it later," he said without looking up.

Getting his gloves and boots off, Lister undid the yellow vest and tossed it lamely at the closet before he just gave up on doing anything strenuous and climbed up and slithered into his bunk.

"You know, when we became eligible for parole, I thought things would finally get better for us," Lister said, giving out a world-weary sigh.

"Better?" Rimmer asked scornfully. "Lister, we're three million years from what we _believe_ might have civilization, we're locked in prison, Captain Hollister probably has a vendetta against us, Ackerman is watching us like a hawk, we have uncomfortable beds, we have no women and the toilet in this room stays greasy even _after _we've spray-cleaned it. Going on parole just means can move more throughout Satan's Holiday Clothes Hamper."

Lister shook his head in disgust. "I'm telling you, man, it wasn't like this when the crew was dead."

Rimmer shot a glare at him. "Oh thanks a smegging bunch," he snapped.

Lister backpedaled quickly. "No, no, not like that, man. I mean, I had so much freedom! I had run of the ship! All the curries I wanted. I didn't need to worry about responsibilities. I didn't need to worry about those stupid credits. I was going out for rounds in _Starbug _and _Blue Midget_. I was living for a change!"

"And now?"

"Now I'm stuck in a prison cell and I have to wait till Thursdays before I'm _allowed_ to have curries."

"Hmmm, yes. And they never think to provide the fire extinguishers for your tongue."

Lister rolled over in his bunk in annoyance.

Rimmer got up and began to remove his garb. "I'm going to use the shower. You don't mind, do you?"

"Nah, go ahead, man."

"Thanks."

Rimmer began to remove his _Canary _Combats and began to strip down to his undershirt and boxers (he'd switched after Kryten pointed out how dorky his Y-Fronts were). He headed for the small shower in the corner next to the bunks and pulled the curtain around himself, and once concealed, he began to remove his shirt and boxers.

Just then, the little watch on Lister's wrist bleeped, making him look up in surprise. "That's Holly. He must want something."

"Typical," Rimmer muttered. "Always when I'm about to get in the shower."

Lister aimed the watch at the in-room screen.

Holly's gormless visage appeared on the screen.

"What's up, Hol?" Lister asked.

"Just checking in. How was the mission?"

"Oh it was hell…"

"What happened?"

"Well, at first it looked like it was going to go alright," Rimmer admitted. "Then we started to get into the shuttle and it all went to hell."

"We had to track down this gigantic beast," Lister said. "You know how I once said that I wished that we'd actually start finding things on these little expeditions?"

"Yeah?" Holly asked.

"I put a hex on the _Canaries_."

Rimmer started his shower and felt the lukewarm water pour on him. "What do you suppose the _Canaries _were used for _before _all this three million years smeg happened? There can't have been that much going on. We never left the Solar System."

"Give them false hope of possibly murdering something, maybe," Lister muttered.

"Best guess is that they just came up with the _Canaries _after they found out we were in deep space," Holly supplied. "It was the best way to handle a situation like this, especially since we've no dogs or sheep onboard."

Lister nodded slightly.

Rimmer lathered up with soap and the cheap motel shampoo and began to scrub.

"How's the water today?" Lister asked, picking up a magazine.

"It's not bad. My spine's not trying to escape the chill," Rimmer replied, rinsing a bunch of soap off his face.

"Brutal. Anything else you wanted to mention, Hol?"

"Eh, nothing going on, really," Holly said. "I've been going through everything in the _Red Dwarf _computer banks. No hot tips so far."

"Wish we could say so," Rimmer mumbled.

"Nothing juicy this week?" Lister sighed.

"Not really. Petersen, Selby and Chen are still holding auditions for their replacement drunken bar-mate, Toddhunter gave a presentation for the Flight Crew, Petrovitch is taking his exams, one of the chefs asked out Kochanski, a new cache of _Doctor Who _videos just turned up – "

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Lister yelled. "What are you talking about?! Are you serious?"

"Yeah, the ones that had that Matt Smith bloke. He was the definitive Doctor, I tell you."

"Pah!" Rimmer snorted, turning the shower off. "Colin Baker had promise, I tell you. Those idiots at the BBC fired him."

"No, no, no! Someone asked out Kochanski?!" Lister exclaimed.

"Yeah, some bloke in the kitchens. One of the chefs, I think. What's his name…?"

"Tim?"

"That's the smegger!"

"He asked Kochanski out?"

"He asked her out, Dave."

"He asked _Kochanski _out?!"

"He asked her out, Dave."

"_He _asked Kochanski out?!"

"He asked her out, Dave, he asked her out," Holly said, starting to get annoyed.

"He _asked_ Kochanski out?!"

"Yes, he asked her out, Dave!"

"_He _asked _Kochanski _out?!"

"_Gordon Bennett_… YES, DAVE, HE ASKED HER OUT!"

Lister stared for a long few moments.

Rimmer had by now gotten out his bathrobe (smuggled to him by Bob) and was just putting it on after watching the exchange with some annoyance. He glanced at Lister as he pulled the shower curtain back.

"Lister…?" he ventured.

Lister stared at him for a long throbbing moment, looking very hurt.

"Rimmer…?"

"Yes?"

"…_He asked her out_?!"

"YES!" Holly shouted.

Lister began to look around the room as he tried to figure this out.

"Why would she do that?" he wondered.

Rimmer sighed to himself and took a seat at the table. "Why wouldn't she?" he asked.

"Well, she's got that Hologram Dave in her dimension. Her oh-so-perfect Dave who can do anything and everything better than I can!"

"How's long has it been since she last saw him?"

"Oh, I dunno, probably a bit over a year now."

"Well, she's probably over him by now."

"No, no, she _can't _be over him! She just can't be!"

"Why not?"

"If she gets over _him_, what chance do _I _have with her?!"

Rimmer rolled his eyes.

"You're a romantic fool, Lister. You think you can't survive without the love of a woman. I've gone more than thirty _years _without a woman, and look how _I _turned out!"

Lister stared at Rimmer. "You're using _that _as an example?"

"What's wrong with me?"

"Rimmer, you were withdrawn, grumpy, lonely, neurotic and a complete and total smeghead!"

Rimmer scowled and folded his arms, looking away and towards the fourth wall of the cell before he considered and looked back.

"'Were'?" he asked.

"Well, thanks to my guidance and perseverance, you've become a more exceptional member of society."

Rimmer snorted. "Your _guidance_?! You're the one who told me to put the laxatives in Ackerman's tea!"

"Yeah, that was brilliant! Man, that bloke can run!" Lister said, grinning like a child.

"I was punished by having to clean the prison mess hall with a pair of tweezers!"

"I know, great, right?"

Rimmer sighed heavily and looked away.

Moments later, a small grin tugged at the corner of his mouth.

"He looked like a bald-headed gazelle," he said fondly.

Lister nodded before sighing himself. "Man, I just don't get it… What's Tim got that I haven't? If anything, I'm more realistic than him! I'm the real deal! I don't hide behind some false mask! Have you seen Tim before?"

"He hangs out in the Officer's Club smoking those black cigarettes. He's a total phony," Rimmer said, picking up a towel and drying his hair.

"Exactly what I said! I don't get why Kriss wants to go back to him. _He _dumped _her _for another woman, and he only went back to her before because _he _lost his little fling, and she went _crawling back_, dumping _me _in the process."

Rimmer tossed the towel aside and opened a locker, pulling out his usual purple prison jumpsuit.

"So why do you want to go back with someone so emotionally unstable?" he asked. "Clearly she's not fit for a relationship."

"She is so! And I couldn't help it anyway. I'm crazy about her. Have you seen her smile?"

Rimmer looked at him strangely as he ducked behind the shower curtain again.

"I'm asking you, man, have you seen her _smile_?"

"Sure I have."

"Haven't you seen how _wonderful _it is?"

"Her smile?"

"Yes!"

Rimmer tried to picture Kochanski smiling. If he was honest with himself, every time Kochanski had smiled in his presence, it looked like she was having a stroke. He wasn't sure if that was his own personal aura or if it was how she always looked. Then he tried picturing it through Lister's Love Goggles, but it only had the same affect.

For simplicity's sake, he simply looked at Lister and said, "No. Tell me."

"You know how when you play a game of Pinball and win the bonus game?"

He didn't, but again, for simplicity's sake, he said, "Yes."

"You know how the game just lights up with flashing lights and makes those wonderful noises?"

"Yes."

"It reminds me of that."

"Her smile reminds of a Pinball Machine," Rimmer stated.

"A bit, yeah…"

Rimmer pondered as he pulled open the shower curtain, revealing him to be in his jumpsuit again.

"Hmm, interesting," he said, crossing to his bunk to put his boots on.

"I just can't believe this is happening…," Lister sighed.

"Hey, man anytime you need to talk, just ask," Holly said sympathetically. "We'll pop some popcorn, get a tub of ice cream and watch _Madison County _together."

Lister rolled his eyes. "Cheers, Hol," he muttered, pressing the stud on the watch and deactivating the screen.

"What're you going to do?" Rimmer asked.

Lister sighed and snuggled up to his smelly pillow on his bunk. "I'm gonna sleep, and then when I wake up, I'll be able to address the situation with a clear head."

"See you in about a week then," Rimmer sighed, pulling out a book.

Lister didn't reply and just rolled over and dozed off.

* * *

The next day, Lister and Rimmer entered the _Canary _canteen, got their meals from the rude dispenser, and carried on towards a table where Kryten and the Cat were already sitting. The Cat had his meal, and Kryten was dutifully scrubbing the tabletop with some spray and a rag.

Lister and Rimmer sat across from them.

"Buddies!" the Cat said cheerfully. "Check it out! They've got half-decent soup today!"

"We noticed," Rimmer replied. "No insectoid body parts floating around today."

"_And_ no mold on the crackers!"

Lister leaned across to Kryten. "Kryten, have you heard about Kochanski?"

"Yes, sir, I believe it to be genetic, personally," Kryten replied, not looking up from his cleaning.

Rimmer bit back a snicker.

"No, I mean about Tim asking her out?"

Kryten looked up, quite surprised. "I'm sorry, sir, I had no idea! But then again, Miss Kochanski's never been one to share her most personal details with me."

"She's your roommate!"

"But she's a very private person, sir. I must respect her boundaries. If I were to go barging in on her private life all the time, sir, I'd be forced to communicate through a game of charades!"

Lister sighed to himself. "Where is she now?"

"She said she would be on her way, sir. Should be any minute now."

"I can't believe this is happening. It's like before the accident all over again."

"Oh buck up, Listy," Rimmer said between spoonfuls of soup. "There's every possibility that nothing will come of a single date."

"You think so?"

"Well, I suppose there's always the off-chance that Tim is going to ooze his charm all over her like maple syrup, and then maple syrup will ooze all over her like his charm, and then…"

"Smeg off, Rimmer," Lister groaned.

Rimmer shrugged and resumed his lunch.

"You thinking negative bud," the Cat said. "You're thinking _loser_. You need to look on the bright side! Maybe some good can come of this whole Bud Babe dating somebody else thing!"

"What good could their possibly be?!"

"Well, one less person to buy a gift for Christmas!"

Lister glared at him.

Just then, Kochanski entered the canteen with her tray in hand. She took a seat next Rimmer, clattering her tray on the table.

"Hello, boys, how's the soup?" she asked noncommittally.

"Clean," the Cat replied.

Kochanski spooned a little into her mouth, and once convinced she hadn't just conceived small pox, she continued to eat it. Then she felt something strange tingling in the back of her mind.

Everyone was looking at her expectantly.

"…What?" she asked, looking at them.

"How was it?" Lister asked.

"How was what?"

"How's _Tim_?"

Kochanski slammed her spoon down in sudden anger. "Holly told you, didn't he?" she snapped.

"Yep."

"Damn it!"

"What, you were gonna _hide _this from us?!"

"What business is it of yours if I go on a date?"

"Krissie, for smeg's sake, haven't you got a boyfriend in _your _dimension?"

"Dave, in case you haven't noticed, I've been trapped in _your _crappy dimension for a long time now. I should think it was time to give up on that, don't you?"

"So how was it?" the Cat asked suddenly, interrupting them.

Kochanski gave Lister one more glare before addressing Cat. "It was nice. He took me up to the observatory. We watched the stars and planets, we talked for awhile, we had a drink, and then he walked me back to the lift."

There was a silence as everyone continued to watch her.

"And…?" the Cat asked eagerly.

"And what?"

The Cat sighed, exasperated. "How was the sex?" he asked bluntly.

Kochanski stared at him incredulously. "We didn't _have _sex!" she nearly yelled.

"Why not?"

"It was the first date!"

"_First_ date?" Lister butted in. "So you plan to go on a _second_ date?"

"Maybe, _yes_," Kochanski snapped. "And then maybe a third, and then, who knows, perhaps a fourth!"

Needless to say, Rimmer was beginning to feel awkward sitting between the pair.

"You're such a hypocrite! You always used to whinge about how wonderful _your Dave_ was, driving us spare, and now you just toss him aside for that poncy chef bloke!"

"Oh get over yourself!"

"You what?!"

"This isn't about my Dave, it's about _you_!"

"What're you talking about?!"

"You're jealous!"

"I… I am…_not_!" Lister said pathetically.

"You are! You're pathetic!"

"Kriss, I'm just trying to –"

"You can't stand the idea of me seeing _anyone_, isn't that right?"

"You're not listening to me!"

"You don't own me, you know! I'm entitled to my own life!"

"When did I say you weren't?"

"God, you're such a pig-headed bastard! Go to hell!"

And she stormed out of the canteen, stomping her feet loudly as she left.

There was a long silence as Lister continued to stare over at the empty chair she'd been sitting in.

Rimmer, Cat and Kryten sat awkwardly, trying not to look directly at him.

Several other prisoners had been watching the exchange from a distance before shrugging and getting back to their meals.

Finally, Lister found his voice cowering under his lungs and managed to force it out, making it sound all scratchy.

"What the hell just happened?" he asked.

"Women…," Rimmer sighed, going back to his soup.

"Yeah," the Cat agreed. "I tell you, you get _one _emotion started up, and all of a sudden, twelve of 'em come in out've _nowhere_!"

Lister sighed sadly and held his head in hands.

The Cat then seemed to regret his statement and reached forward across the table and put a hand on Lister's.

"Hey bud…," he said quietly.

"Yeah…?"

"…Do you think she'd mind if I took her soup?"

"Nah, go ahead, man."

"Thanks."

And the Cat pulled the tray across to himself and began to lap it up with his tongue.

Lister exhaled his misery through his teeth and continued to stare into the depths of his own soup.

"Sir, don't worry," Kryten said assuringly. "I'm sure Miss Kochanski will see the error of her ways, and will realize that you were just looking out for her."

"Have you _met _her?" Lister asked as his head slowly leveled with Kryten's. "Remember when I caught the Epideme Virus?"

"What's the Epideme Virus?" Rimmer asked without looking up from his soup.

"It was an intelligent virus that was created in rival to the nicotine patch. Unfortunately, it consumed its host and zombified the victim to transfer to another victim, in this case, Mr Lister."

"Sounds awful," Rimmer commented.

"Kochanski told me I was being a baby and to get over it!"

"Really?"

"Sir, she stopped being condescending after she realized the severity of the situation."

"Kryten, I had just been tongue-hockeyed by a zombie about as attractive as Bonnie Parker _after _she'd been shot down!"

"Maybe she was jealous and was just patronizing you!" the Cat suggested.

Lister, frustrated, began to spoon his soup.

"So what happened with the Epideme Virus?" Rimmer asked.

"Well, the virus was intelligent, so we are actually able to communicate with it. We attempted to drive it off into one of Mr Lister's arms in order to contain it, and then cut off the arm. Unfortunately, some of the virus found its way back. In the end, it was Miss Kochanski who was able to save him by killing him and then transferring the virus to a decoy arm."

Rimmer stared at him, and then at Lister, who wasn't paying attention anymore.

"So how'd he get the arm back?" he asked.

"That's where my old nanobots came into play," Kryten replied. "We found out that they had stolen _Red Dwarf _and turned it into a planetoid, and they gave Mr Lister a new arm. You should already know the rest. That Epideme Virus was what led to your very resurrection, Mr Rimmer."

"Yeah, the start everything going to hell," the Cat muttered.

Rimmer scowled at him before starting in on his soup again.

* * *

That evening, Lister stood outside the cell and stood at the top of G Tower, leaning against the gantry and looking across to the main part of the ship a distance away. Sixty feet across a two hundred foot gap was all that prevented him from crossing to safety. He stared down at the other jail blocks rotating beneath him. He wasn't even sure what the floor looked like down there. There was probably a lot of gum.

He was thankful they had been given the top cell in the tower. That meant they didn't have to worry about some idiot from the top floor spitting tobacco or something worse from above and having it land on his head while he was out here. It would've been like trying to protect your car from pigeons.

Lister had found a slight charm in the setup around here. It was a bit like a stinking rotating rusty condo. Sure, it was cramped inside, but hey, at least they had a balcony.

The cell door opened and Rimmer walked outside and joined him.

"So, how're you coping?" he asked, leaning against the railing.

"Coping with the fact that the woman of my dreams is angry with me and going out with another bloke?" Lister asked flatly.

Rimmer paused to think. "Yeah," he said at last.

"I haven't jumped yet."

"Good, good."

They stood in silence for awhile.

"Why does Tim need to go out with her again? He dumped her. He treats her like trash. I'd have thought that with her in the Tank, he'd have easily moved on."

Rimmer shrugged. "Maybe whatever new fling he's got isn't putting out right now. It's like with oil companies. Once one area dries up, you move on, drive out the current country holding the oil and drill the hell out of it."

Lister rubbed the bridge of his nose in despair. "Smeg…," he muttered. "Kriss is gonna get herself hurt again. I just know it…"

"So what're you going to do?"

Lister contemplated before he headed back into the cell, with Rimmer trailing behind him.

Once inside, he pressed the stud on his wristwatch and Holly's visage appeared on the screen.

"Alright, dudes?" he asked. "What's the haps?"

Rimmer rolled his eyes and looked away.

"Hol, I need you to do a bit of snooping through the computer banks again," Lister said. "I need some info on what Tim's been up to since we've been in the Tank. Can you do that?"

Holly nodded. "I'll search his profile. I'll drain him dry. No clue shall escape my highly-trained eye."

"Brutal. Get going."

Holly's face sagged slightly. "Oh, you wanted that done now? I was in the middle of _Crime Watch_."

"Just go," Lister sighed, pressing the stud on his watch again.

Holly vanished.

"Hope you're comfy, because we're going to be waiting awhile," Rimmer sighed, sitting down in his chair.

Lister nodded. "Draughts?" he asked, motioning towards the board.

"Sure, break 'em out."

* * *

That evening, Kryten was doing a bit of tidying around the cell. He'd just received a new load of bed sheets from the ship's laundry and was to iron and fold it all, all in line with his parole requirements.

Miss Kochanski wasn't back yet, but his anxiety drive hadn't fully activated yet. She was only a few minutes late, and she _had _had an argument with Mr Lister. Maybe things would perk up once she got back.

But then he heard laughter. His audio receivers were picking up laughter. He enhanced their quality and listened.

He recognized a woman's laughter: Miss Kochanski.

The other he didn't recognize. It was a man's voice.

Kryten was momentarily confused before his eyes widened in realization.

Miss Kochanski had brought her date _home_!

Surely she knew that Kryten would be there, right?

Right?

_Right_?

The sound of the platform from the lift connecting with their balcony sounded.

Realizing he had to look inconspicuous, he immediately became very engrossed in his ironing. He didn't even look up. He began stamping the iron into the sheets like he was stamping his name onto various documents.

_Just pretend you're a bureaucrat_, he thought to himself.

He heard the footsteps on the metal floor outside, and then the door to the cell slid open. He still didn't look up as they entered.

The laughter ceased and the footsteps halted.

"Oh, Kryten, you're here," Kochanski said, sounding rather deflated.

Kryten couldn't help but feel annoyed at that tone. Of _course _he was here. He lived here!

"Indeed, ma'am," he said curtly. "Just working on my parole duties."

"It's alright, Kriss, I'd like to meet the robot," the male voice said.

Kryten looked up to see Tim.

Tim was everything that he'd heard about: impossibly handsome, oozing charm, and from the looks of him, he was probably a great lover.

Mr Lister didn't stand a chance.

Tim extended a hand out to Kryten. "Hello, I'm Tim," he said in a very manly voice that almost made Kryten's audio receptors melt.

"How do you do, sir," Kryten replied, setting the iron down and shaking his hand. "My name is Kryten."

"Yes, Kriss has told me a lot about you. She says you're something of a science expert."

Kryten was surprised by what sounded like was a compliment that had come from Miss Kochanski. He glanced in her direction, but she was glaring daggers at him due to her severe nookie-shortage.

"Well, erm, yes sir, I do have a basic knowledge of many things mechanical and scientific," he said modestly.

"That's very impressive, Kryten," Tim said pleasantly. "You know, I'm actually taking a few mechanics classes. Maybe we can compare notes sometime."

"Oh, sir, that'd be very interesting. I may very well take you up on that."

"Excellent. I'll see you later. Bye, Krissie," he said, leaning in and kissing her cheek.

Kryten's brief liking of this man suddenly banked to the left.

Krissie.

That's _Mr Lister's_ name for her.

Bastard.

Tim left the cell and departed.

Kochanski watched him go, and then turned to scowl at Kryten. "Look what you've done!" she shouted.

Kryten looked around the room in the utmost confusion, momentarily thinking he'd made a mistake in his laundry, but nothing was out of line.

"Ma'am?" he asked, confused.

"How could you do that?!"

"I'm afraid I don't follow you, ma'am."

"I was going to sleep with him, you metal twit!"

Kryten's CPU registered the statement, and it nearly crashed his systems.

"Ma'am, I… I don't… I didn't mean to… I was only… I… I-I-I… sorry."

"Well, you should be," she snapped, stomping past towards her bunk and removing her boots.

"But ma'am, I could've simply gone offline. I have a few files that need deleting. I could've given you at least twenty minutes."

Kochanski stopped struggling with her second boot and put her face in her hands. She was quiet for awhile before she finally managed to look around the cell again.

"I know, I know, I'm sorry, Kryten," she said quietly. "It's just…I'm back with Tim again, and I _really_ want it to work this time."

"You're sure about that, ma'am?"

"Yes, of course I am. Why?"

"Well, it's just that nearly all of last year, all we ever seemed to hear about from you was 'your Mr Lister'."

Kochanski was silent.

"Well, we also had to put up with your constant whining, but still…"

"_Kryten_…"

"My point, ma'am, is that it just seems a tad off for you to go back to Mr Tim after all that dedication you seemed to be pouring into _your_ Mr Lister."

"Kryten, I'm stuck here. I'm trying to live with it. I'm doing that by going out with Tim."

"But what about Mr Lister? _This _Mr Lister?"

Kochanski looked disgusted. "He's a bastard," she said, as if it were obvious.

"Ma'am, he'd transverse the entire universe for you. He's had it in his head for the past few years that he'll win you back, even before you were trapped here with us."

"See? He's delusional. That doesn't make for a good relationship!" And she ripped off her other boot and tossed it aside.

"Oh, ma'am, you're just making excuses for your own despicable actions!"

"_Despicable actions_?" Kochanski repeated.

"Yes! Not only are you tormenting Mr Lister, but you are clearly only using Mr Tim for nookie-nookie purposes!"

Kochanski's mouth dropped open, and while she was struggling to pull it back up again, Kryten continued.

"You've gone so long without performing the horizontal tango that you've decided to grab the first male willing to put out and have him grind your brains out!"

Kochanski considered slapping Kryten, but first off, his head is made of metal, and second, his angular features might hurt her hand. So instead, she picked up a wrench and clanged him over the head with it, making the poor mech stumble backwards in dazed surprise. Shooting him one last angry glare, she climbed up into her bunk and rolled over, not looking at him.

Kryten regained his senses and managed to stumble his way back towards the ironing board, where he resumed his duties.

"Well, I'm glad we had this talk, ma'am. I think we've made some progress," he said, and he went back to work.


	2. Prank

**Author's notes: **_A bit of housekeeping: Lister's monologue at the end of this chapter was transcribed from the novel, Red Dwarf: Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers. It just worked so well for the scene I needed, I adapted it a little bit._

* * *

Rimmer was beyond frustrated as he was escorted back to the cell. His parole duties had included working for Captain Hollister, and it bothered him extremely. He had found himself kissing up again, as per usual, and recently, every time he did so, he felt himself die a little inside. He was glad when the lift platform connected with his cell balcony and the guard locked the gate behind him.

"Right, same time tomorrow," the guard said.

Rimmer nodded in reply and headed for the cell door while the platform retreated back to the lift. He walked round the rounded structure, up the steps and rounded towards the door, unlocking it and walking through.

He found Lister standing next to their pipe, tapping his special "Skutter Speak" onto the outside of it with a screwdriver. Rimmer set his folders down on the table and sat down, filling out his forms, waiting for him to finish.

Lister tapped several times, then stopped and listened for the reply. After a handful of large taps and couple of small taps reverberated back to his ear, he answered with a series of small taps, ending with a big one. A couple more taps rang out, and Lister replied with a single tap before tossing the screwdriver aside and heading back to his chair.

"Talking to Fred Astaire?" Rimmer asked, not looking up.

"Got on the horn with Bob and Madge," Lister replied. "How was your parole today?"

"I gave Hollister his latest crate of _Super-Fun-Sized Nutty Crunch Bars_. Then I told him how remarkably thin he was looking. Then I offered to brush his shoes with a toothbrush."

"You didn't, did you?"

"No, of course not. But he did tell me to spray-clean his private restroom."

"Oof."

"I was only in there for two minutes, but I swear my nose hairs almost caught fire."

Rimmer continued to fill out his forms for a few seconds.

"So, what were talking to Bob about?"

"I need a few things from him to help with a project."

"Project? Is that a new word for _prank_?"

"A bit, yes."

"Hmm. What's it for?"

"Well, it's been three days, and Holly hasn't called back. I need to take care of this Tim situation myself."

Rimmer sighed. "You're not going to do something stupid, are you?" he sighed.

"Rimmer, I'm a man in love!"

"That's a yes then, is it?"

"I've got to put a stop to this whole Tim thing. She hasn't spoken to me in days. I'm going spare. I _need_ to fix this."

"You're going to fix this by playing a prank on Tim?"

"Yeah, of course. I just need to make him look less appealing, and she'll ditch him."

"You think it'll be that easy?"

"Of course it will!"

"What exactly do you plan to do?"

Lister pulled a sheet of paper out of his pocket and unfolded it before handing it over.

Rimmer looked over, furrowing his brow before looking up.

"This is it?"

"Yep."

"This is your _whole _plan?"

"You bet."

"You're going to drop _water balloons_ on them?"

Lister grinned proudly. "It's brilliant, isn't it?"

"What are you, six years old? Do you have a tiger that play around in the woods with?"

"Oh come on, Rimmer, I need to do this!"

"You need a lot of things, Lister. Do you want to know why things never work out with you and Kochanski? You're a lovey-dovey sap, and when you work up a sweat, you smell like canned tamales, so you can never make love during the summertime."

Lister stared for a moment before he sniffed self-consciously under his armpit. He grimaced slightly before he returned to making his point.

"Look, Bob's gonna bring us twenty water balloons and a giant bag. We're gonna sneak into the air ducts and crawl all the way to Tim's quarters. When we get there, we dump them on him."

"I see…," Rimmer said, pretending to be thinking very hard about it. "And this plan makes her return to you _how_?"

"I'm not trying to win her back yet. I'm just trying to get Tim out of the picture. Once he's humiliated and she sees how wrong he is for her, she'll dump him and _then _I'll make my move."

"You've got the morals of an Alaskan Governor."

"What, I give up on everything?"

Rimmer paused and thought for a moment.

"No, wait, that's not right, hang on…," he said, thinking it over. "What political figure was the type who would destroy something so they could have something that belonged to them?"

Lister thought about it. "Any of the ones whose countries needed oil. That's all _I _can think of."

"Whatever. The point is you're no better than they are."

Lister went to retort, but they heard a clinking noise from their air duct. He leapt from his seat and propped his chair up under the grate, climbing up on it and pushing open the metal wiring.

A little Skutter head lowered itself down inside.

"Bob, nice and quick, great. Did you get what I asked for?"

Bob chirped in reply and went back up into the duct. Some shuffling noises were heard and then several plastic bags fell into Lister's waiting hands.

"_Yes_!" Lister exulted. "What about the bag?"

A gigantic canvas bag came parachuting down through the duct and covered Lister from head to toe.

"Brutal! Cheers Bob. Hang on; I'll get your payment."

Lister attempted to get down off the chair, but covered in the bag, he couldn't really see what he was doing, and he accidentally tripped over the large bag and tumbled downwards, landing hard on the metal floor of the cell.

"Smeggin' hell!" he wailed, thrashing about on the floor.

Bob poked his head quizzically down the hatch and looked at him curiously.

Rimmer rolled his eyes and walked around the cell towards the shelf on the far wall. He picked up a spray can and got up on the chair beneath Bob.

"Okay, open wide," he said dryly.

Bob chirped and opened his claws up. Rimmer sprayed the bottle of WD40 all over the Skutters blue head, and Bob revved his motor with pleasure. After a few seconds of this, he stopped spraying and put the can back again.

"Thanks. See you around," Rimmer said, clicking his teeth at the Skutter.

Bob chirped in reply and retreated back into the air ducts.

Once Rimmer had pulled the grate shut again and climbed down, he saw that Lister had just about managed to free himself from the confines of the bag and was now just now climbing out of it.

"You know, this doesn't really bode well for your little plan," he said flatly as he headed back for his chair.

Lister managed to get up and pulled out a packet of water balloons. He ripped open the top of it.

"Where'd he get those?" Rimmer continued.

"He looted the ship's shops. Grabbed about ten packets. We may save the others for the guards later. Come on. Let's get to work on filling these up."

"But when we use the sinks, it charges us a credit per gallon. Three bags alone could bankrupt us."

"Relax, we're not Lehman Brothers or Enron. We just have to work a way around the system to fill these up."

"How's that?"

Lister headed over to the sewage pipe as he took out one of the balloons. As he tossed the remainder on the table, he took the mouth of the balloon and held it open with his finger. With his other hand, he began to turn the screw on the side of it open. When he did, a small stream of sewage began to pour out, and he immediately plugged the hole with the balloon, which slowly began to fill.

Rimmer grimaced and looked away in disgust.

"I'll have enough within the next few days," Lister said assuringly.

"Hope you're comfortable," Rimmer replied, going back to his book.

* * *

A few days later in the prison mess hall, Kochanski was moodily getting her meal from the dispenser. She took her tray and grumbled down the hall and into the cafeteria, heading over towards the table were Kryten and the Cat were seated. She slapped her tray down across from them and moodily began to eat her meal.

Kryten didn't even greet her.

The Cat looked back and forth between them unsurely.

"Hey, Officer BB," he said, trying to sound cheerful.

"Cat," she said with a mouthful of meat.

"How's life?"

"Crappy."

"Glad to here it!"

She sneered at him and continued on.

They sat in silence a bit longer before the Cat couldn't take it any longer.

"So buds, why don't we play a game?"

"How about bite me?"

"Okay, who's 'it'?"

Kryten rolled his eyes and returned his attentions to his cleaning.

The Cat sighed and continued with his meal. "Oh fine, just because your life sucks, you gotta take it out on the guy who just wants to help. And I made myself look damn _good_ today to ease the situation!"

"Where are Lister and Rimmer?" Kochanski mumbled.

"They requested that their meals be sent to their quarters, ma'am," Kryten said curtly, scrubbing up the same spot on the table for the twentieth time now.

"What for?"

Kryten slapped his rag down on the table in frustration. "Goodness me, ma'am, I wonder _why_?!"

Kochanski glared at him. "Dave was acting like a pig," she snapped.

"He was?" the Cat asked.

"Yes, he thinks he can decide what I do and what I can't do!"

"He does?"

"He…!" But her rant died in her throat as she began to replay the argument in her head and she suddenly went quiet.

Kryten went back to his cleaning. "And they thought Gilligan was a doof…," he mumbled.

Kochanski didn't even bother to hollow his insides out with a glare. She just stared at her tray.

"I guess I was a bit sharp with him, wasn't I?" she said quietly.

"Sharp? You could've cut _glass _with that tongue!" the Cat said.

"Alright, I shouldn't have yelled at him, but I guess I was just frustrated. I finally meet a new guy and Lister gives me the third degree."

The Cat nodded knowingly. "Nobody expects the Smeghead Inquisition," he commented.

"I think you should apologize to Mr Lister," Kryten said sternly.

"I will, as soon as I see him again."

"Good. Now eat up, ma'am. Your meat looks nice today, and any of these brutes may sneak up on you and snatch it."

Kochanski began to eat her lunch.

"Just so you know, Tim wants to stop by again tonight," she added.

"Is he?"

"Yes, he just wants to visit."

"Visit… _Right_," the Cat grinned.

"He just wants to talk," Kochanski said pointedly.

"Is 'talk' code for 'sex'?"

"Cat, he's bringing some books over!"

"And 'books' is code for 'saddle and whip', right?"

"CAT!"

"I'm totally right, and you know it!"

"I'll tidy up the cell for his arrival, ma'am," Kryten assured her.

"Thank you."

"Now 'tidy up the cell'… Does that mean there's going to be _crawling _involved?"

"Cat, just shut up, alright?"

* * *

That night, Lister was standing at the pipe with a half-full water balloon. He was half-asleep and dizzy from the stench. Off to the side of the cell was a mountain of water balloons that were all filled with the sludge from the pipe.

The cell door slid open, and in strode Rimmer, who looked around curiously at the scene before him.

"Still at it, are you?" he asked before sitting at the table and pulling out a booklet.

"I'm fine…," Lister mumbled.

"It's been four days, Listy. You've only stopped for restroom breaks and meals."

"You think I'm working too hard?"

"Oh absolutely, just standing there all day must take a lot of energy. It's quite a feat, really! Next, I suppose we'll see you waltz all the way over to the bag and put _that _balloon in there as well."

"This is the last one. We can go as soon as I've finished."

Rimmer's eyebrows seemed to try and escape his forehead due to his massive confusion bubbling over.

"_We_?" he repeated.

"I'm gonna need help with this, Rimmer. For smeg's sake, _look_ at all of that! I'll be lucky if I get _any_ of that up the air ducts."

"Why should _I _help you? It's _your _problem. She's not speaking to _you_. It's got nothing to do with me."

"Come on, man, it won't take long! Besides, I've been waiting to take Tim down a peg or two for a long time."

"That was supposed to convince me? Another one of _your _problems?"

"_Please_, Rimmer! I'm begging you!"

Rimmer stared at him for a long throbbing moment before he broke down and scowled.

"Oh alright, I'll do it," he muttered.

Lister smirked with triumph as he tied off the last water balloon and headed for the bag.

"Just _one _condition," Rimmer added.

"Name it."

"Take a shower. The canned tamales are back with the steamed radishes."

Lister sniffed himself under the armpit. "Aw, it ain't that bad!"

"_Lister_…"

"Oh, alright, fine."

Grumbling to himself, Lister headed for the shower.

* * *

Kryten was busily doing a bit of tidying around the cell. He was scrubbing up the floors with a sponge cheerfully, whistling a light tune. He was hoping to keep his Happiness Mode on at full power so that he would be pleasant when Miss Kochanski brought Tim down for the visit.

"_One_…_singular sensation_…," he sang quietly.

Then he heard the sound of someone coming.

"Oh! Oh goodness, they're here!" he exclaimed.

Kryten leapt to his feet and tossed his sponge aside into the sink. He went off to the side of the room and pretended to be looking at the wall in an attempt to look casual.

The cell door slid open with a mechanical whirr, and Kochanski and Tim walked inside.

"Good evening, ma'am, sir," Kryten said pleasantly.

"Hello, Kryten," Tim said politely, "how are you?"

"I am functioning perfectly, sir thank you."

"Glad to hear it. How's life in the Tank?"

"Oh, filthy walls, grimy floors, filthy sinks and showers… Give me a mop and bucket and I'm in hog's heaven, sir!"

Tim chuckled while Kochanski covered her eyes in embarrassment.

Kryten then noticed that Tim was holding several text books and a small metallic device.

"Oh, are you here for your reading, sir?"

"Yes, these are from my mechanics class. I have to repair a carburetor by next week or I fail my class and have to go back to work in the kitchens. I'm afraid I'm not incredibly good at this sort of thing."

"I keep telling you, you're going to do a good job," Kochanski assured him, heading over towards her bunk to remove her boots.

"I've been at this for a few days now, and I can't make heads or tails of it," Tim continued.

Kryten looked the carburetor over thoughtfully. "Hmmm… Curious," he said.

Tim looked at him hopefully. "What, can you find what's wrong with it?"

"Oh of course I can, sir," Kryten replied. "I can see it quite clearly. But then I'm programmed to see the problem in everything."

Kochanski rolled her eyes as she pulled off her other boot.

"Do you think you can help me with it sometime this week?" Tim asked.

Kryten looked curious. "I should think so, sir. Obviously, I can't _tell _you the answer…"

"Of course!" Tim agreed quickly. "I'm not asking for that. I was just hoping that maybe you could help me. Maybe guide me along?"

Kryten was divided on the idea. On the one hand, he knew that Mr Lister didn't like Tim and wanted him out of Miss Kochanski's life, and just endearing himself to the handsome smegger wasn't going to earn him any points.

On the other hand, Tim was a polite person who barely knew him. It seemed wrong to shoot him down just because he was allowed to explore the contents of Miss Kochanski's jumpsuit. So, as his CPU fought with itself, his Decency Chip went ahead and spoke for him.

"Why of course, sir. I'd be willing to help you."

Tim beamed his movie star teeth at him. "Thanks, Krytie, I appreciate it."

Kryten's left eye twitched slightly due to his audio receptors not quite liking his nickname being said by this guy. Something about it was off…

"I'm going to get going now. I'll see what progress I can make tonight. I'll see you tomorrow, Krissie," Tim continued, kissing Kochanski goodnight.

"Goodnight," she whispered.

With a final nod to Kryten, Tim strode out of the cell and departed.

"I thought he was coming here to study," Kryten said.

"He did. We studied together while we were out," Kochanski said, undoing her jumpsuit strap and unzipping the front.

"Well, I hope it was pleasant."

"Thank you."

She removed her jumpsuit and got down to her t-shirt and underwear, and she climbed up onto the bunk. She got under her blanket and got comfortable.

But Kryten continued to watch Tim departing. He couldn't help but feel a slight unease about the man…

* * *

"Keep…moving…Rimmer!" Lister grunted.

"I am, you sweaty _goit_!" Rimmer snapped back.

The pair was up in the air ducts, pushing and pulling the giant bag of water balloons along the narrow metal ductways. The slime and sludge inside the balloons was gurgling like Old Faithful's equivalent of taking a deep breath.

There was a sickening sound as they listened to a faint pop come from within the bag.

"_Smeg_…," Rimmer mumbled, feeling the sludge leak from through the bag's fabric.

"Another one?" Lister sighed.

"Yeah…"

"How many have we lost now?"

"I count at least nine now."

"How many did we start with?"

"I think you said twenty or something."

"Damn… We need to be more careful."

"How do we find Tim exactly?"

"Bob's given me a map. I've been following it exactly. We should arrive in his quarters any minute now."

Rimmer sighed angrily, trying not to inhale the ghastly smell. "I hate that phrase."

"What phrase?"

"_Any minute now_. It's too generic. _Any _minute? That could range from the next coming minute to the exact minute that people stop obsessing about a female singer's weight! It could be literally _any minute_!"

Lister sighed heavily. "You know, I'm really glad I brought you along."

"Why?"

"Your whining takes my mind off my claustrophobia."

Rimmer scowled in the dark. "How much further?"

"According to the map, we've just got one more corner to go around."

"Good. I think I've lost track of which smells worse: the sludge in the bag or the sludge _carrying _it."

Lister wished there was enough room in the duct to swivel around and stick his tongue out at the smegger, but width and height left a lot to be desired, so he ignored him instead and carried on.

Rimmer grumbled and pushed the bag along.

They managed to get the bag to round the corner, and after a bit more grunting and complaining, they managed to bring it safely to a halt before an air grate.

"Are we there yet?" Rimmer whispered.

Lister looked down into the room below, and saw that they had come to a stop above a certain sleeping quarters. He peered through the grate into the dark room, and he could just make out a figure sleeping below.

"I see him," he whispered back. "Pass the screwdriver."

Rimmer managed to pass Lister a sonic screwdriver and settled in.

Lister managed to undo the screws and pulled the grate into the duct with them, gently putting it aside.

"Okay," Lister whispered. "We're right above him. Get ready. When I say to push, push, alright?"

"Thanks, Professor, I never would've figured it out otherwise," Rimmer sneered back.

Lister managed to aim the mouth of the bag just right, so that it was out over the opening in the ceiling.

"_Push_," he hissed.

Rolling his eyes with silent despair, Rimmer pushed up against the back end of the now-moist bag, sending whatever surviving balloons there were down the hatch and down into the room below.

The resulting splatter noise was to _die_ for.

Lister bit back his snickering while Rimmer rolled his eyes.

They both peered down into the darkness and saw the figure sitting up in bed, coughing and spluttering.

"_HELP! I'M DROWNING! I'M DROWNING! MOMMY!_"

Lister and Rimmer froze in horror.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe that _that _was Tim's voice," Rimmer squeaked.

"I don't think so…," Lister whispered.

They peered down into the dark room, unable to make out the flailing figure.

"And I don't believe that Tim is bald either," Rimmer continued.

"No, I don't think he is…"

They listened to the voice below.

"What the hell…? WHAT IS THE _MEANING _OF THIS?!"

And the lights went on and the figure came in more clearly.

"_Ackerman_…," Rimmer mumbled.

Moving quickly, Lister shoved the grate over the duct again.

"Smeg, smeg, smeg, smeg, smeg, smeg, _sme-e-e-e-e-e-e-eg_!" Rimmer wailed quietly through his teeth.

"We've gotta scarper, man. Grab the evidence!"

Rimmer rolled up the bag and immediately began crawling back the way they came. Lister frantically pushed him along.

"Get the hell on with it!"

"I'm moving, I'm moving!"

They rounded the corner and headed down another separate tunnel.

"Which way?"

"Just follow the stench of canned tamales and we'll be fine!"

"Smeg off!"

They crawled frantically around a few more bends before finally reaching the next corner, but just as they were about to go around it, they were stopped by a very manic face with a shaved head and a glass eye.

"_Going somewhere_, _boys_?" he asked in a very sneaky voice that sounded like Yogi Bear had decided to become a thug.

Lister and Rimmer stared at him in stunned silence for a few seconds before Rimmer found his voice again and was able to regain control of his body. He managed to bring up his left hand and point in Lister's direction.

"_He did it_…," he squeaked.

* * *

Flanked by a pair of guards, Lister and Rimmer marched side-by-side in perfect unison down the corridor to the Captain's Office. They rounded the corners and walked down that long corridor before entering the main room with the desk and chairs and screens and everything else that a captain could need.

Captain Hollister sat at his desk with the very stern-looking Warden Ackerman standing stock-still at his side, his arms crossed and his eyes like ice.

More out of habit than anything else, Rimmer stomped the ground with his boot and went into the Full Rimmer Salute: five rotations of the wrist, salute and then brought his hand down again.

Lister settled for waving weakly at them.

Captain Hollister smiled tightly at them. "Well…?" he asked.

"Yes, sir?" Lister asked.

"Care to explain how all that sludge found its way atop Mr Ackerman's head?"

"Gravity?"

Ackerman's glare hardened.

"What were you doing up there?" Hollister continued.

"It was an accident, sir," Rimmer said.

"Accident?"

"It was a case of mistaken identity," Lister explained. "We were looking for someone else, but we didn't know our way around the ducts."

"Who were you looking for?"

Lister squirmed slightly.

Rimmer didn't say anything.

"Well…?"

"Sir, have you been in love?" Lister asked at last.

Hollister and Ackerman both squinted their eyes at him in confusion.

Rimmer squeezed his own eyes shut, dreading what would happen next.

"That's your excuse for this, Lister? You're in _love_?"

"You don't understand…"

"Oh _don't _we?"

"No, you don't. You don't know what it was like when I first saw her."

"Humor us, Mr Lister, what was it like?"

"Well…"

"Oh here we go…," Rimmer mumbled.

"She had a face. That was the first thing I noticed about her. It wasn't a wonderful face, but it was a nice face. It wasn't a face that could launch a thousand ships. Maybe two ships and a small yacht. That is, until she smiled. When she smiled, her eyes were like a pinball machine when you win a bonus game, and she smiled a lot."

"Lovely…," Ackerman muttered.

"Let him speak," Hollister said, holding a hand up to silence him.

"I could've survived the smile," Lister continued, "but it was when I found the smile was attached to a sense of humor that I became irretrievably lost. I remember how for a full hour, I tried to think of something interesting to say so that I could ask her out. I mean, how you ask someone out for a drink without making it sound like 'will you have my babies'?"

Hollister seemed to nod knowingly, whilst Ackerman looked thoughtful.

"So I finally managed. We dated for three weeks. I became a walking cliché. My senses were heightened, even the foul, recycled air of the ship tasted crisp and spring-like. I went off my food. I stopped drinking. Pop lyrics started to mean something to me. I started getting up before my alarm clock went off…"

"Totally unheard of," Rimmer chipped in.

Lister nodded in agreement. "And then it was over. Our how wonderful 'forever' lasted just over a month. Then one evening in her sleeping quarter, as I arrived to take her to a movie, she'd told me she wanted to break it off. She'd been seeing some other bloke for almost two years. He'd left her for a fling with some brunette, and I'd been the rebound. As soon as the other guy dumped the brunette, she'd gone scurrying back."

He couldn't help but notice that by now, Hollister and Ackerman were both incredibly enraptured by what he was saying. He'd never thought of himself as a mushy dirty book from a barber shop, but he was beginning to feel like one.

"There were tears, there were apologies, and pathetic clichéd platitudes: they could still be friends; if I met him, I'd really like him; she wished she were two people, so she could love both of us; ad nauseum. She returned some of the gifts; I let her keep a few. And now, she's everywhere. Everywhere I go, I'm going _without _her. When I go shopping, I go without her. When I go to the bar, I go without her. She's infected every part of my life. I have to go everyday without her. And I just had to avenge my life."

Well, by now, Hollister, Ackerman, and their two guards were weeping their eyes out. Hollister was hunched over his desk, just in tears. Ackerman was trying to cover his face with his hand, weeping away. The guards had tears streaming down their cheeks and were sniffling as they continued to look straight ahead and hold their guns properly.

Rimmer was the only one unaffected by the monologue. He had the advantage of having already heard it one thousand and one times already. He just stood there, watching the weeping officers in bewilderment.

Finally, Hollister managed to haul himself up and prop himself on his elbows, wiping tears from his eyes with his sleeve.

"I think…_sniffle_…we can…let it go just this once," he whimpered. "Don't you think, Ackerman?"

Ackerman replied with a wave of his hand, not daring to let it be seen that he was crying.

"Right…_sniff_…we'll call it a crime of passion…_buh-huh_… But you two still need to clean Ackerman's quarters."

"Damn straight!" Ackerman wailed.

"Yes, sir," Lister and Rimmer said together.

"Dismissed!"

Rimmer gave a quick salute and Lister curtsied, and they both turned and marched out of the room as quickly as they could, flanked by the two flustered guards.

"Can't believe that worked…," Lister muttered.

"Tell me about it…"


	3. Climax

Later that day, Lister and Rimmer were sitting in Ackerman's Quarters, sitting in a pair of chairs before an HDTV. A remote control hung loosely in Lister's hand as he stared ahead, slouched and drooling. Rimmer sat a bit more properly, his fingers loosely clinging to the arms of the chair, slouched downwards a bit.

They were cleaning Ackerman's Quarters.

"So, how much longer do you think it'll take to clean up the mess?" Rimmer asked.

"I'll find out. How's it coming, Krytie?" Lister asked without moving his eye line away from the screen.

Kryten looked from his cleaning, having applied many amounts of _Spray & Go_ to the sheets to the point they were very nearly clean enough to shag in.

"Nearly ready, sirs," he replied cheerily.

"Good."

"Oh, sirs, I can't thank you enough. Thanks to your childish prank, we're finally spending some quality time together! I was beginning to think you didn't care anymore!"

"Krytie, we're trying to choose the next program!"

"Ah, sorry, sirs, I'll continue."

Once Kryten returned to his cleaning, Lister motioned towards the booklet that was sitting on the coffee table in front of them. "So what's playing?"

Rimmer grunted slightly as he reached forward and grabbed the booklet and then crashed back into the chair comfortably again. He flipped through the pages at a leisurely pace.

"Well, there's an adaptation of a Japanese thriller that was better in the original Japanese, there's a sequel to a sci-fi series that should've been put to bed years ago, there's an uninspired teenage comedy starring Lindsay Lohan, there's a hack romantic comedy that's trying desperately to be _When Harry Met Sally_, and there's a remake of a remake of what was originally a ride at Disneyland."

They sat in contemplation for a few moments.

"Has he got any good books around here?" Lister finally asked, craning his neck to look around the room.

"You mean his collection of Sci-Fi Graphic Novels, or his fifteen hundred thousand Lincoln biographies?"

Lister considered. "Okay, hand me the booklet."

Rimmer tossed it over in Lister's direction. He began to thumb through it.

"Ah, here's something decent," he said approvingly. "_Sherlock Holmes_ starring Jeremy Brett, David Burke and Edward Hardwick."

Rimmer smiled with satisfaction. "Ah, Mr Brett, you were taken from us too soon."

Lister clicked the remote and they started to view, pleased when the familiar violin music began to play over 19th Century London.

Kryten worked in silence for a few minutes before he was finally pleased with all the cleaning he had done.

"Sirs, I've completed the bed sheets. I'm going to tackle those carpet stains now."

"Get to it, Kryten."

"Yes, sir."

Kryten got out a spray bottle and got down on his knees to start scrubbing.

It was quiet for a few minutes more, except for when something happened on the screen.

"Whoa, that was amazing!"

"Look at him leap over furniture! I didn't know cigarettes had so many vitamins!"

They continued watching for a few more minutes before a simple yet pulsating noise resonated throughout their minds.

_Beep-beep! Beep-beep! Beep-beep!_

"What the hell now?" Rimmer complained, looking around.

"Ah, that's just my messenger, sirs. I brought it along. Won't take a jiff."

Kryten pulled out a small rectangular device from his cleaning utility belt and looked closely at the words appearing on the screen.

"What is it?" Lister said, not looking up from the screen.

"Just a message from Miss Kochanski."

"What's she say?"

"She's just wants to know when I'll be back tonight. I'll send her reply now."

Kryten took the device and stuck it in the side of his head, and his thoughts were computed into the device, and then he pressed the 'send' button.

But Lister's interest was already piqued. "She doesn't know about the prank, does she?"

"She doesn't know about the 'Tim' factor, if that's what you're really getting at, sir," Kryten replied, setting the messenger down on the desk.

"Good. Last thing I need is her getting all hot and bothered at me over something like this."

Rimmer was ignoring all this as he paid attention to the screen. "God, there's got to be more redheads in that building than there are at the Pippi Longstocking Fan Club."

Lister looked at the screen as well. "Wait. The bloke without the red hair. What's he doing?"

There was a silence, and then a surprised scream was heard coming from the telly.

Lister and Rimmer looked surprised and rose slightly in their seats.

"Smeggin' 'ell!"

"He can just go ahead and pull a man's hair like that?"

_Beep-beep! Beep-beep! Beep-beep!_

They were momentarily distracted when Kryten's messenger went off again. Kryten picked it up and read the tiny screen.

"What's she want now?" Lister asked, his gaze divided between the screen and the mechanoid.

"She says that she wants me home be seven. Apparently Tim is stopping by again, and he wants me to help him with his carburetor again."

Rimmer scrunched up his face. "Wait, you're telling me that Tim, aka 'Captain Charisma', brings a _carburetor _with himon his _dates_? What's he trying to prove? That's he's good with tools?"

"He says it's a part of a class he's taking, sir," Kryten replied. "He's trying to go for a job in the landing bay, working on _Starbugs _and _Blue Midgets_. But if he can't repair the carburetor for his class, he'll fail."

Lister contemplated this for a moment before he returned to watching the television again. Something on the screen caught his interest.

"Didn't know they made artificial kneecaps back then," he murmured.

* * *

Later that day, probably just before dinnertime, Kryten was fumbling his way around the _Red Dwarf _ventilation systems. He'd long since finished his cleaning job Mr Lister and Mr Rimmer and was now on his way back to his quarters before the guards noticed he wasn't there anymore. He was squeezing himself along the narrow ductways as quickly as he could.

It wasn't easy, of course. He was repeatedly getting commands from his CPU to clean and wipe the filthy air ducts, so he'd have to stop and cancel the program so that he could continue on a ways. It was about as frustrating as Windows Vista.

But regardless, he had to get there soon. It was coming up on six-thirty. With a little luck, he'd be there early and have just enough time to tidy the cell before Tim came along.

After a few more minutes of struggling, Kryten found the ventilation shaft just above his own quarters. Entering Happiness Mode, he was pleased that he was finally home, and so he unscrewed the vent shaft in the ceiling and pulled it back, and then poked his head down into the cell below.

"Miss Kochanski? Ma'am?"

His head swiveled round and then he caught sight of something that nearly made his eyes shoot out.

Miss Kochanski was in bed with Tim.

They were staring at him in shock, with the widest of eyes.

"Kryten…?" Kochanski asked in a voice that was either of shock or threatening.

"Oh! Erm, forgive me, ma'am, sir. I was just, erm, I… I… I… I'll just come back later…"

And with that, Kryten reversed back into the air duct.

There was a silence as Tim and Kochanski stared at the place where Kryten had been.

"So…you still want me to find the marmite, or should we move on?"

* * *

The door to their own cell whirred as it slid open, and Lister and Rimmer wandered aimlessly into their quarters. They listened to the door slide shut behind them, and then they listened to the guards departing back towards the lift.

They slumped down in their chairs and got comfortable.

"Well…," Rimmer said thoughtfully. "That was…a complete and total waste of time!"

"I'm sorry, alright?" Lister said, rubbing a finger against the nick on his forehead.

"You made me crawl in air ducts, getting sores in places I didn't know I had, behind a bag full of balloons that were leaking fluids that we can only assume were spat down a sink or flushed down a toilet, only so we would dump them on the warden because _you _were holding the map upside-down!"

"I'm sorry."

"The warden, as we all know, is a complete psycho who, in a fit of brilliance, opened the air grate on the wall of his quarters and met us in the ducts before we could escape. He then grabbed us both by our noses and dragged us down the shaft and tied us up with our own smelly wet bag to a pair of chairs."

"I'm sorry."

"Then we were forced to sit there all night, smelling like a service station restroom. We had to breathe in toxic fumes all night."

"I'm sorry."

"When we woke up, we were marched down to the Captain, and you went into your sad pathetic little monologue. The only reason it got us off is because Hollister is never going to see his beloved wife again, and Ackerman is a fruity go-go dancer in a warden's uniform."

"…I'm sorry."

"Oh, so you're sorry, are you?!" Rimmer snapped. "We nearly got our arses handed to us all because you're a childish, jealous, dozy _gimp_!"

"I'm sorry."

Rimmer exhaled forcibly through his teeth and leaned against the table, frustrated.

Just then, there was a soft bleep from Lister's watch.

"That's Hol. He must have something," he said, aiming the watch at the screen.

Holly's visage appeared on the screen on the far wall. But now, he'd corrupted his image to put a brown deerstalker on his head and a pipe in his mouth, which floated aside whenever he spoke.

"Alright, dudes?" he asked.

"Where've you been, Hol?" Lister demanded.

"It's taken me a deal of time to break into the ship's computer banks," Holly explained. "But once I got in, I managed to find Tim's profile. I've found everything there is to know about him."

"Brilliant! What've you got?"

"He has two checked out library books, and he ordered a _Toblerone_ from a vending machine on B-Deck last night."

Rimmer hid his face in his hand out of frustration.

"No, Hol, I meant have you found anything I can use to break up him and Kochanski."

"Oh that. Well, he's actually been pretty clean recently. One interesting fact is that he broke up with a brunette who works in the Landing Bay."

Lister looked up. "Who was it?"

"No details on a name. All I could get on her is that she works in the Landing Bay working on _Starbugs _and _Blue Midgets_. She helps repair them."

Rimmer looked up again, suddenly interested in what Holly was saying.

"Why'd they break up?" Lister continued.

"The most I could get on that little nugget was that she has decided that she only wants to date people who work in her field. Apparently their relationship was constantly being hampered by their different schedules. Not enough time to kick boots."

Lister considered this. "Anything else?" he asked.

"Well, he has started taking a mechanics class. Probably trying to get himself promoted into the Landing Bay so that they can get back together."

Lister and Rimmer looked at each other, aghast.

"Then… Then why's he getting together with Krissie?" Lister wondered aloud.

"Maybe something to keep him busy while he's waiting?" Rimmer suggested.

"No, no, there's gotta be _something_! He's got to have some sort of _motive_! But what?"

Lister thought as hard as he could, but he came up empty.

"Holly, what else did you find out?"

"Well, his grades in the class aren't doing very well. He's on the verge of failing."

"Really?"

"Yeah. But he's working on some extra credit. He's got to repair a carburetor before next week or he'll fail the class, and then he won't be able to take the class again for another year."

Lister's eyebrows furrowed together as if they were discussing something in secret above his nose. Then his eyes widened with realization.

"Didn't Kryten mention a carburetor earlier today?" he asked, dread building up in his stomach.

Rimmer looked at Lister, and the same dreaded realization spread across his face.

"Kryten said he was helping him build it…," he said slowly.

"Smeg!"

"Ah, so now we have all the pieces of the puzzle," Holly said triumphantly, blowing simulated bubbles out of his pipe. "Tim needs to take the class so he can hook back up with his brunette floozy. To do this, he needs to fix the carburetor, so he needs an expert on this sort of thing. He can't ask his mates, so he remembers his old flame, Kochanski, and he knows about her prison sentence, and he knows she's friends with a robot. He decides to ask her out with the intent of heading over to her quarters. After awhile, he asks if he can do some studying in her cell, and Kochanski, like a fool, agrees. Tim then gets cozy with Kryten and asks him for help. Kryten can't help but say yes, being programmed to serve those superior to him. Kryten helps him repair the machine, Tim passes his class, and he dumps Kochanski and gets back together with his lady friend from the Landing Bay!"

Lister and Rimmer stared at him in bewilderment.

"You figured that all out on your own?" Rimmer asked, rather amazed.

"Elementary, my dear dudes," Holly said with a wink.

* * *

Kochanski, meanwhile, was lounging on her bunk, reading a book. She and Tim had gotten over the shock of Kryten's surprise entrance and had a long chat about trivial things, hoping he wouldn't bring it up again. Finally, just to distract themselves from it, Tim had suggested that Kryten continue to help him with the carburetor.

Kryten and Tim sat in the chairs at the desk, going over the small device with a magnifying glass and some tools.

"Now you see this here?" Kryten said, pointing at a small section. "This part is called the 'throat' or 'barrel'. It is through this that air passes into the inlet manifold of the engine."

"I see," Tim said, writing down his notes.

"The pipe is in the form of a venturi: it narrows in section and then widens again, allowing air to increase in speed in the narrowest part."

"Right…," Tim said, continuing to write.

As Kryten continued to explain, his CPU was still fighting an internal battle. Could he really keep this up? Was he really okay with helping a man that Mr Lister detested? After all that Mr Lister had done for him, he was now in essence helping the other side. How could he? Would such actions allow him access to Silicon Heaven? What would the All-Mighty Creator think of him serving another?

It was fortunate that Kryten was able to think about all this while he was explaining basic mechanics to Tim. Otherwise, they'd have quite a mess on their hands.

They had just finished with the basics of carburetor technology when Tim's watch started beeping.

"Uh-oh. My break's nearly over," he announced. "We'll have to continue another time, Krytie."

Kryten ignored the command to smack this jerk over the head with a pipe for using his beloved nickname and smiled a plastic grin pleasantly. "Of course, sir. I am always available."

Tim walked over to Kochanski and kissed her deeply. As he pulled away, he whispered, "Good night, I'll see you later."

"Bye," Kochanski said with a smile.

And with one last charming smile, Tim gathered his things and left.

Kryten watched him go with some concern.

"Well, ma'am," he said, getting up and heading towards his own bunk, "I hope that until my arrival, all was well?"

"Oh yes," Kochanski replied, with a very content smile.

"Good. And again, I apologize for my head coming off and banging Mr Tim in the face while you were helping me down."

"It's alright. He's fine."

Kochanski got into her bunk.

"We'll be eating in the cafeteria tomorrow. I'll be able to speak to Dave then. Pity he and Rimmer have been away for so long."

"Yes, well they've been busy lately."

"What were they up to? Did you ever find out?"

Kryten squirmed slightly. "Oh, I'm afraid not, ma'am."

"Then what did they need you down in Ackerman's Quarters so urgently?"

"Erm, well, they played a prank on Mr Ackerman, ma'am."

"I see… What did they do?"

"Well, er… They dropped water balloons on Mr Ackerman from the air ducts, ma'am."

"_Water balloons_?" Kochanski repeated, almost amused.

"Water balloons…filled with sludge, ma'am."

"Ah… Why did they do that? Ackerman hasn't abused any of us personally lately."

Kryten laughed nervously. "Perhaps it was just for, er, _kicks_, ma'am."

Kochanski thought for a moment. "But they always have a reason for a prank."

"Perhaps it's something we don't know about, ma'am."

"Maybe… Kryten?"

"Yes, ma'am?"

"You're lying right now, aren't you?"

Kryten's head jerked up as he looked up at the top bunk. "Ma'am?!" he exclaimed.

"You're saying 'ma'am' too many times, Kryten. You're really struggling for lies today, aren't you?"

"Ma'am, please! Mr Lister is embarrassed by the prank. He called it a mistake! Please don't make me tell you!"

Kochanski looked down at Kryten. "So it has something to do with me?"

Kryten winced. He could be so _bad _at this sometimes.

"Kryten?"

"I just… He was… I… I… I… I…"

"_Kryten_?"

"He was trying to get Mr Tim with the balloons, ma'am!"

"He what?"

"_Don't tell_!"

Kochanski tried to comprehend this for a moment before an angry look came across her face. "That little _bastard_!" she snarled.

"Ma'am, please!" Kryten said, getting up to look at her levelly. "He did it out of _love_!"

"Fine, then while I'm killing him, I'll be doing it out of _love _too!"

"He's already admitted he acted irrationally. He already feels terrible about even trying it!"

Kochanski reached under her mattress and smacked Kryten over the head with a spanner, resulting in Kryten stumbling backwards in befuddlement.

"Oh, I'm sorry for my irrational actions, Kryten. I feel terrible for trying that!" she snapped sarcastically.

* * *

The next day at lunch, Lister, Rimmer and the Cat were huddled at their table, hunched over their meals.

"So this Tim dude is only using Officer BB to get to Crashed Helicopter Head?" the Cat was asking.

"Yeah," Lister said back.

"Wow. I wonder what Tim could _see _in a cleaning robot."

"He's not trying to _date_ him, Cat," Rimmer snapped.

"Oh, good, I was trying to picture it. Yee-_uck_."

"I'm gonna try to talk to her now before we go ahead and do something we might regret," Lister continued. "This smeghead has already screwed her over before. I hate to think what she'll do this time."

"I seem to recall that last time she dated you on the rebound," Rimmer pointed out.

"Ooh, yeah, bud," the Cat said, wrinkling his nose. "You're gonna have to let her down gently to protect her from you."

Lister scowled at them.

Just then, Kryten came waddling past them. He sat down next to the Cat. He looked incredibly jittery. His eyes flitted back and forth and he drummed his fingers on the table rapidly.

Lister and the others stared at him with confusion and curiosity until realization hit him.

"Oh smeg, Kryten, you _told her_!"

"She forced it out of me, sir!" Kryten wailed pathetically. "She kept catching me out in each of my lies! Oh sir, forgive me, sir!"

"Kryten, calm down, you're scaring the straights," Rimmer hissed.

"What the smeg am I gonna do?" Lister demanded. "She'll never believe me now! She'll think I'm just some brain-dead, low-down, childish bum!"

"That's what she's _always_ thought of you!" the Cat reminded him.

"And it's what you actually are," Rimmer added. "So what are you worried about?"

"She's never gonna wanna see me again after this."

"I wouldn't bet on that, sir," Kryten said worriedly.

"Why's that?"

Kryten's answer was interrupted when something cold and wet came down on Lister's head, and suddenly his eyesight was momentarily impaired. He looked around in confusion before realizing something of some weight had nestled itself down on his head. When he removed, he felt some sort of nice-smelling liquid was pouring down his face, along with a few chunks of chicken.

It appeared someone had just dumped a bowl of soup all over his head.

When he swiveled his head around to see where it had come from, he saw Kochanski glaring at him with a fierce intensity. Without saying a word, she immediately grabbed his lunch tray and stormed away from their table.

Lister watched retreating form and then turned round to see Rimmer, Cat and Kryten all staring at him, waiting for what he would say next.

"_Smeg_…"

* * *

A couple days later, the _Canary _Lounge was occupied by Kochanski. She was sitting in one of the many rooms that the Tank had to offer. She was sitting in the chair sideways, her legs draped over one arm while she leant against the other. She was reading a book she'd found, or at least she seemed to be. She hadn't actually turned any pages, nor had she read the first fifty-four of them. She was too busy thinking to read.

Just then, the big door slid open, and in walked a very sheepish Lister. He was wearing a very sad expression on his face. He hoped it was good enough. He'd spent hours practicing it in the mirror.

But Kochanski didn't acknowledge him. She just sat there, pretending to read.

"Kriss…," he said quietly.

But she didn't look at him.

Biting his lower lip, Lister slunk towards her and sat in the chair next to her, but he decided to sit behind her, as to avoid any lethal looks she might send his way.

"Kriss, listen, I'm sorry for what I did. It was stupid, pathetic and immature."

No reaction. No additions. No signs if she was listening.

But he soldiered on.

"But you gotta know the truth about Tim. Holly, Rimmer and me worked it out. We found out that before he got back together with you, he was with this brunette who works in the Landing Bay. She dumped him because he doesn't work in her department. That's why he's taking that class in mechanics, so he can get together with her. But it got too hard for him, so when he found out that you were working with Kryten, he tried getting back together with you so that Kryten could help him with his class."

Kochanski sat there in silence, but she wasn't looking at the book anymore. She was instead staring intently at the wall.

"Kriss… I'm sorry, alright, I hate to tell you all this, but I just had—"

"You bastard."

Lister's head swiveled round rather quickly, putting an awkward crick in his neck. He stared at the back of her head in confusion.

"Eh?" he said stupidly.

"You bastard."

"Kriss, what are you—?"

Kochanski got up and slammed the book down on the floor and stormed around the room. "You're really stooping this low? Honestly, Dave, that's below feeble."

"Kriss, why won't you believe me?"

"Because I know you, Dave, and I know just how selfish you can be!"

"Selfish? Me?"

"Don't play innocent. I know what you're like. When I first arrived on _Starbug_, I went through some of the reports of your past adventures. I found out a thing or two about what you're like!"

Lister continued to stare, but his eyes squinted in confusion. "You _what_?"

"I seem to recall a time when you and the old Rimmer were trapped on an ice planet, and your only source of heat was a small fire in a barrel."

Lister shrank down nervously. He knew where this was going now.

"Rimmer is forced to make sacrifice after sacrifice. He gives up all his prized possessions just so you can continue living. Then, when it comes down to the last few of his items, you realize you may have to sacrifice your prized guitar. It's either the guitar or Rimmer's favorite things. And what do you do?"

Lister couldn't look at her. He'd always felt so ashamed of what he'd done that day.

"You cut a guitar in the back of Rimmer's prized trunk in the shape of a guitar and burn it instead."

"The nanobots resurrected the trunk in its entirety! I checked!" Lister protested.

"Then of course there was the time on the Psi-Moon made up of Rimmer's emotions. His Self-Loathing Monster wanted to kill him. So what do you do? You have to make him feel loved. So you lift his spirits, make him feel good about himself, build up his self-confidence and what happens?"

"Kriss, if you'd just been there—"

"You get what you want, you escape the moon, and immediately tell Rimmer you were lying to him."

"You don't understand the circumstances!"

"The man was an emotional wreck and you only made it worse!"

"But… But…"

"And then the Simulant Ship…"

"What Simulant Ship?"

"Supplies on _Starbug _are low. You're being forced to eat healthy, naturally grown foods. There's a chance that the Simulant Ship that you blew up earlier might have supplies, so what do you do?"

"Hey, don't turn that around on _me_! Rimmer _abandoned_ us!"

"Hmmm… Was that _before _or _after _you rigged the readouts, lied to them and snuck around their backs just so you'd have some extra hot sauce?"

Lister went to retort, but it died in his throat. Suddenly what Rimmer had done to them that day didn't seem so bad in retrospect.

"And let's not forget something else: President Kennedy…"

"Oh please don't remind me of that…"

"Transversing time and space, reprogramming Kryten, lying to the others, causing the biggest conspiracy in American History, nearly destroying the human race with a nuclear war, and _all you cared about was having a curry_…"

"I said I was sorry."

"And then later, when you got your precious curry back, what happened?"

Lister sighed. "Rimmer and Cat went behind my back and trapped me in _Starbug's _detachable end. They left me floating alone in Deep Space for about a week."

Kochanski looked at him with a smirk.

"You see why I won't believe you?"

"But Kriss, this is _you_ I'm talking to! I might do that to Kryten, Rimmer or the Cat, but never to _you_! You're different! I actually _give two smegs _about you!"

Kochanski glared at him. "I don't care what you think. For all I care, you can go to hell."

Lister's facial features struggled to find the appropriate emotion to display, but he felt so many right now that none of them could win.

At that moment, the door slid open. They looked up and saw Tim walking in, carrying the carburetor in his hands, and Kryten was waddling behind him.

"Krissie, there you are," he said with a warm smile. "Lister, how are you?"

Lister forced a smile onto his face. "Fine, Tim. You?"

"I'm doing alright."

"Tim, can we go now?" Kochanski asked, looking _very _flustered.

"Sure, Kriss, what's wrong?"

"Nothing. I'm just very eager to get away from here."

"Yes, alright. Oh! Good news! Kryten and I finished the carburetor," he said happily, holding up the finished device.

Lister looked at it closely.

"Thanks wonderful, Tim," Kochanski said, looking happier. "I'm so glad you'll pass your class now."

"Yeah, me too. Let's go."

Tim put an arm around Kochanski, who sent one last glare at the very hurt Lister before they made for the door.

"Oh, Mr Tim," Kryten said. "Allow me to hold onto that so that you may enjoy your date."

"Thank you, Kryten," Tim said, handing him the carburetor. "See you tonight."

Kryten took the box and waved goodbye to Kochanski and Tim as they left.

Once the door was shut and they were out of sight, Kryten gave Lister a wink.

* * *

Later that night, Tim and Kochanski returned to the cell, laughing and talking.

Kryten was sitting at the desk, looking over the carburetor.

"Ah, sir, ma'am, how was it?" he asked chirpily.

"It was wonderful, Kryten," Kochanski said happily.

"Yes, it was," Tim said.

"So, what do you want to do now?"

"Erm, actually, I was hoping we could talk about something. Kryten, would you mind standing outside, please?"

"Oh, certainly, sir. It'll give me something clean up later," Kryten said politely.

And with that, Kryten departed and left the cell, closing the door behind him and disappearing past the window.

Kochanski, still holding Tim's hands, sat down on the bunk, pulling him down next to her. "So…," she said, smiling away like Nancy Reagan, "…what do you want to talk about?"

"Well, thanks to Kryten, I'll be able to pass me mechanics class," Tim began.

"I know, and again, I'm happy for you."

"Right, but see, here's the thing… When I get promoted to the Landing Bay, I'm going to be busier than I was before. I'm going to have to stay in the Landing Bay, I'll be working longer hours, and I might not be able to come down here as frequently as I have been."

Kochanski nodded, thinking about this. "Well, that's okay. We can make it work, can't we?"

But Tim's smile was failing him a little bit. "I'm not sure we can… Listen, Kristine, this has been wonderful, and _you're _wonderful… But I don't want to put you through that sort of relationship. You deserve better than that."

Kochanski's smile began to wilt as well. She tried to ignore the little voice in the back of her mind. "Tim, what are you saying…?" she asked slowly, fearing the answer.

"…I'm sorry, Krissie, but I'm breaking up with you…," Tim said, looking very sad.

Kochanski's entire face seemed to collapse in on itself. She stared at him for a very long moment.

"But… But we… It's all been so… You've… We… We barely even…," she fought for the right words to articulate what she was trying to say, and then a little light came on in her head.

Everything Lister had said earlier reverberated through her mind, and then she realized the horrible, ugly truth.

"You…bastard…," she whispered, only half-aware that she'd said it.

Tim blinked in surprise. "What?"

"So it's true, isn't it? Everything Dave told me was true!"

"What? What did Lister say?"

"You were only dating me so you could get to Kryten! You only wanted him to repair your precious carburetor so that you could pass that class and get back together with _her_!"

"Kriss, please, you don't know what you're talking about! Lister doesn't know anything!"

"Dave was telling me the truth! He found out about it and was trying to warn me, but I was too stupidly in love with you to tell the difference!"

"DAVE LISTER IS AN IDIOT!" Tim suddenly roared, leaping up from the bunk in a sudden wave of fury.

And Kochanski responded by smacking him across the face. Tim staggered backwards in surprise, feeling the freshly-cut skin that her fingernails had given him.

"Don't you _dare _talk about him like that," she growled. "Just get out. I don't ever want to see you again. I don't ever want to _sense _you again!"

Tim stared at her for a long throbbing moment before he shook his head in disgust and headed for the desk to pick up his carburetor and go.

But it wasn't there.

"Where's my carburetor?" he asked, looking around the room.

"I don't know. Wherever Kryten put it," Kochanski said, not even looking at him.

Tim headed out of the cell and rounded the balcony to call on Kryten, but he found he didn't need to look very far.

Kryten was standing just past the large window of the cell, holding the carburetor in its box.

He was flanked at both sides by Lister, Rimmer and Cat.

"Ah, Mr Tim, sir," Kryten said pleasantly. "I trust your little chat is over. You may have your carburetor back."

Tim stared uncertainly at the group, but as far as he could tell, his precious carburetor was still in one piece, so he took it and wordlessly headed for the platform that connected the prison block tower to the adjacent lift. He got on, pushed the button and locked the gate behind him.

Just as the platform was reversing backwards towards the lift doors, Lister suddenly stepped forward, his cheeky chipmunk grin on his face.

"Oh, Tim!" he shouted across the ever-growing distance between them. "You may not want to leave without this!" And he revealed a small flat round piece of metal from behind his back.

Tim's eyes widened.

"Ah yes, sir," Kryten said, "that would be the Choke Pull-Off. Quite essential."

"Oh, and you might need this as well," Rimmer added, pulling out another round piece of metal.

"Internal Bowl Vent, sir."

"And this!" the Cat added, pulling out something of his own.

"Fuel inlet, sir."

Lister, Rimmer and Cat tossed the small items gently, and they fell short of the platform, disappearing into the dark abyss below, and Tim listened in horror as they clattered on the ground a good two hundred feet below.

"Oh darn," Rimmer said in mock-sadness. "Never was good at throwing…"

Tim continued to stare at them in disbelief as he was pulled back into the lift, and the doors closed in front of him, and then he was gone.

Cackling to themselves, the Boyz From the Dwarf gave each other congratulatory high-fives and low-fives.

Kochanski had been watching this whole scene from the cell door in amazement. She felt a faint smile niggling at the side of her mouth, but she wouldn't let it out yet.

"You came back…," she whispered.

They looked over at her in surprise.

"After all those things I said to you, you still came back?" she asked.

Lister smiled slightly as he went to say something, but the Cat beat him to it.

"That's what we do around here," he said, putting comradely arms around Kryten and Rimmer's shoulders. "It's the _Red Dwarf _way! One in trouble, all in trouble! The posse! The _Boyz From the Dwarf_! If one of us is in a fix, the home boys band together!"

And then he did the Boyz From the Dwarf hand dangle, which Lister and Kryten decided to join in on. Rimmer rolled his eyes and did it as well.

Kochanski couldn't stop the smile now, and it completely overtook her face. Unable to contain herself, she wrapped her arms around Lister and gave him a peck on the cheek.

Lister felt utterly ecstatic.

But then Kochanski moved on and hugged Cat, Kryten and Rimmer as well, and Lister didn't feel quite as special anymore.

But he still felt good.

And as she continued to smile, Rimmer took a look at her features and noticed how bright her smile was. He leaned over and whispered to Lister, "Is that the bonus game?"

Lister grinned. "Yeah…"

Rimmer looked at Kochanski while she talked to Kryten and thought for a few moments.

"Nope. Still don't see it," he said with a shrug.

Lister sighed to himself.

END

* * *

**Author's Notes: **_Alright, got that over and done with. First off: yes, I'm a fan of Sherlock Holmes, and Jeremy Brett was the _definitive_ Holmes._

_Second: Everything that Kochanski mentioned in the lounge scene is everything Lister has ever done that has irritated me. Seriously, I don't even like the episode Terrorform because it's basically just there to be cruel to Rimmer._

_I'd like to thank my readers for reading (both of them), and if you have been, thank you for reading._


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